Household Item Electricity Use

We are frequently asked how much electricity various items use. Rather than provide those answers individually, below you can see how much you can expect certain items to use. Before showing you the list, though, a few caveats:

Usage varies from model to model. Your model may use more or less electricity, depending on numerous factors including age, features, etc.

Usage varies by use. This is obvious. Washing clothes in hot water will cost more than washing them in cold water, for example. Setting your thermostat higher in the summer and lower in the winter will reduce costs.

Appliances that create heat use more electricity.

Product labels will give you estimated usage in watts. If it only gives you amps, multiply that by 120 to get wattage. If you want to be even more precise based on your usage habits,, you can buy a watt-hour meter and monitor it. Here is the table.

Total energy stored by an alkaline AA battery. This is to put batteries into perspective. If you could power your clock radio with a AA battery, it wouldn’t even last an hour. We have more on batteries on our Guide to Household Batteries.